The answer to the eyes, the brain, and the heart is very different. The eye says that it sees the colors, patches, gamuts, lines, shapes, and shapes of the surface; The brain says it sees Kandinsky, Hilma af Klint, Rothko; The mind, however, says that it sees a mental landscape that transcends language, emotions, memories, or fantasies.
Poland artist Stefan Gierowski's work will make all three agree in a rare way – containing light. The meaning of light is endless: Leonardo da Vinci believed that there is light before there is shadow, and the existence of light and shadow brings the beginning of painting; The Bible, the text of Western religions, mentions on the Home, "Let there be light," and light is thus given a spiritual meaning of enlightenment; In modern scientific fields such as quantum physics, which is more rational, light is particles, waves, and the bricks and stones of the universe. The image of light beautifully dominates the eyes, the brain, and the heart.
Painting DXXI, 1984, 200 × 130 cm, oil on canvas
Philip Dodd, a famous United Kingdom curator, keenly captured the particularity of light in Gierowski's work, using light as a clue to curate an exhibition at the CAFA Art Museum entitled "That's Where Light Comes In: The Art of Stefan · Gerovsky (1925-2022)", reviewing the important works of the artist's career and answering three topics in three parts:
- At a time when space travel is in the global spotlight, how Gierowski's abstract art responds to the theme of space exploration;
- the influence of Chinese culture, especially Laozi's philosophy, on Gierowski, how he focused his abstract paintings on the spirit and the void;
- The artist's exploration of the relationship between light and color can provide a creative response to scientific thought and development.
Painting CCLXVI, 1971, 100.2 × 74.7 cm, oil on canvas
A 19th-century writer said that all art tends to be in a state of music. Gierowski's work evokes a wordless song: stark color contrasts, identical shapes, chunks of white space, echoing rhythm, pattern, repetition, noise, and silence. The Poland composer Witold Lutoslawki, who was close friends with the artist, once said: "Where music begins, words end." But this proximity to melody stems not only from the artist's pursuit of concise expression, but also from the specific environment in which he lives.
"In times of political turmoil, there is a limit to what can be said publicly. Therefore, Gierowski wants to express his ideas, but through a musical and artistic language that is not polluted by political discourse and public language. …… So he entered a new experimental world, a world where music and art could be freely expressed, a world where language was completely useless. Philip Dodd explained to us.
Back to the original question, Gierowski himself replied:
Abstract painting is a form of writing that cannot be translated – of all the different types of painting, abstract painting is the most grounded in fact and based on some kind of truth. Interestingly, many people think that abstract painting is completely impersonal. I think that if Plato had seen abstract painting today, he would not have thought that this art form was all a lie. He can only say that painting imitates nature.
Because it also contains truths that words cannot reach. We spoke to curator Philip Dodd about this pure authenticity.
The exhibition features 27 works by Gierowski. There are oil paintings on canvas and watercolors on paper. For you, what is the most important way for the viewer to quickly understand one of Gierowski's works? Is there a work that you regret not to be exhibited?
I would choose the 1962 work CLXVII because it's so simple. In a sense, it is black and white, following the aesthetic of "less is more". But what's interesting is that Gierowski was able to use such a minimalist effect to create a sense of mystery. On one level, it's just a line that runs through the black space; On another level, it appeared after space travel. Things get interesting when you associate it with space travel – the line looks like the trajectory left by a rocket when it goes into space. But it is also a line of aspiration from low to high, with a spiritual dimension. After all, the Bible begins with the phrase "Let there be light," and it gives rise to the wonderful feeling that a painting that can resonate with all of these meanings can be created by the simplest means – paint, black, and white, both physical and metaphysical.
We wanted to bring some of our paintings to China, but unfortunately we couldn't. One of the paintings I wanted to bring to the table was The Ten Commandments, as it showed that Gierowski had been trying to express traditional ideas in a contemporary way. The name of the painting is not "The Ten Commandments", it comes from the "Old Testament", but it is called "The Ten Commandments of Painting". In other words, it's about the act of painting the "Ten Commandments", because he depicts them again in an abstract way, so they are special. I've seen them in a church in Warsaw, it's a stunning set of paintings, but we don't have enough space to display them.
Painting DCCXXX, 1998, 130 × 100 cm, oil on canvas
You describe Gierowski's work as musical, "rhythm, pattern, repetition, noise and silence...... can you elaborate on the rhythm, noise and silence, and how these musicality are reflected in the details?
I think his paintings have a strong connection to music. If you look closely at Gierowski's paintings, you'll see that many of the elements in them share similarities with music. For example, in many watercolours, he uses spatial elements. There are hardly any brushstrokes on these paintings, there is no noise, and it is very quiet. John Cage, the great United States composer, once said that if music is noise, then all noise is music. It can be said that Gierowski is rethinking the question: if music is also silent, then is all silence music? In other paintings, you can see how he uses color contrast to create sound, noise, and rhythm, playing with the equivalence of visual rhythms. In these different paintings, I think he is always thinking about how to use contrasting colors to produce sound, how to create silence through white space.
Painting DCCLXI, 2000, 150 × 150 cm Oil on canvas
Painting DCCCXVI, 2005, 100 × 73 cm, oil on canvas
As far as you know, Gierowski listened to music while painting? Gierowski's love for musician Witold Lutoslawki is mentioned in the exhibition, and how does their work influence each other?
Gierowski doesn't listen to music when he paints, but he listens to music when he's done. Beethoven was one of his heroes. For the exhibition in Beijing, we brought a record cover of Beethoven's symphonies. Gierowski would sit in the studio and turn up the volume so that Beethoven's music would fill the space. I think this illustrates Gierowski's ambition: he didn't want to compose works as quiet as Debussy's piano music. He considers his paintings, although small, to be boisterous symphonies, like Beethoven's symphonies.
The relationship between the Poland composers Witold Lutoslawki and Gierowski was very close. Lutoslawki once said something great: "Where music begins, words end." "I think that's why they make connections. They live in a specific environment and are limited in what they can say publicly. Therefore, they want to express their ideas, but through a musical language and an artistic language that is not polluted by political discourse and public language. So they are all experimental, starting with respect for Poland folk traditions, and always respecting them, but going beyond them. They enter a whole new experimental world, a world where music and art can be freely expressed, a world where language is completely useless.
If you could compare Gierowski's painting to a genre of music, what would it be?
In a way, it's classical music. But the term "classical music" is not always appropriate, sometimes his paintings seem to be creating works similar to those of string quartets, and sometimes his works are symphonic and experimental. The truth about Gierowski is that he didn't want to choose between tradition and modernity, and he was eager to understand how to create a modern equivalent to classical painting. Therefore, he painted the Ten Commandments in a light way, which is found in all the great religious paintings, but he borrowed from the theories of modern physics.
Painting CLXXXIV, 1964, 65 × 50 cm, oil on canvas
In your opinion, what do abstract painting and music have in common? Do they all express a universal truth that cannot be told, or is there some common human emotion? As a curator and scholar, you've always had a soft spot for abstract painting – why?
At the end of the 19th century, a writer said, "All art tends to be in the state of music". I think Gierowski, as well as many abstract painters who were interested in music, tried to use music as an analogy for their work. They try to get rid of the narrative because it has been overused; They want to get rid of the narrative so that it doesn't become stale. Of course, the beauty of abstract painting is that it can get rid of narrative, which is something that narrative art struggles to do. They chose abstract paintings in part to explore psychological landscapes that are difficult to represent through narrative.
I have always been committed to bringing abstract art to China for many reasons. A friend of mine said that although there is a lot of abstract art in the West, it is difficult to understand Western abstract art without understanding its relationship with Eastern philosophy. There is a lot of truth to that. Many abstract painters had a keen interest in Zen Buddhism and Chinese spatial expressions, and Gierowski had read books on them. I was fascinated by China in the '80s, because at that time, a set of books and paintings that had never existed before came to people's eyes – a famous book on the spirit in art that was translated into Chinese in the early '80s, and the complexity of it was that Kandinsky himself was a theist, and the theism itself had its roots in India and Buddhism.
So, is it the West that influences the East, or does the East influence the West? I have tried to bring Western artists who resonate with Asian philosophy to China, and I have always hoped to bring China's Xiao Qin and Tan Ping to the West, so that Asian philosophy and Western modernism can meet. The last thing we need at the moment is to build more barriers. I think abstract art is a way of exploring the relationship between East and West.
After in-depth contact with artists from around the world who practiced abstract painting in the mid-to-late 20th century (e.g., Stefan Gierowski, Sean Scully, Tan Ping, Xiao Qin), do you think the differences in the perception of abstract art between different artists are more personal or more national?
The philosopher Victor Stein famously said, "The game itself has no essence, only similarities." "I think there are similarities between abstract works, whether it's Tan Ping or Rothko, whether it's Ding Yi or Sean Scully. Gierowski once said that if the great ancient Greece philosopher Plato saw abstract art, he would not consider it a lie, but he would consider a figurative narrative a lie.
Chinese artists grew up in different national traditions, but there are many great Chinese works of art, many of which are masterpieces, and they have had a great influence on the West. For example, Qi Baishi's ink paintings, which Picasso hung in his studio for seven years. So, I think there's always been an exchange and an influence between the East and the West.
What is special about Gierowski among these abstract painters?
Unlike Scully, Tan Ping, Ding Yi or other artists such as Rothko or Jackson Pollock, Gierowski creates very small, humble paintings. I don't know why, but when I look at these paintings, I remember that he grew up in Poland, when the dominant idea in painting and art was socialist realism: socialist realism was about grandeur and scale, and those large sculptors were regarded as sculptors. As you stroll through Warsaw, you will feel the hunger of other countries in the former Soviet Union. And what makes Gierowski outstanding is that he is humble. That doesn't mean he doesn't think he can compose a symphony as grand as Beethoven's. But instead of pursuing the creation of large-scale murals, he chose low-key, humble, small works that contain wonderful, noisy, spectacular things.
Painting CVI, 1961, 60 × 80 cm, oil on canvas
Painting XCVII, 1961, 135 × 99.5 cm, oil on canvas
How do you understand Gierowski's penchant for circles and lines? In addition to intuitive pointing, such as the earth and light, are there other symbols and metaphors?
Circles and lines have multiple meanings, not just referring to the earth and light. One of the things I believe is that artists can't control the meaning of their work. As Roland · Barthes said, "a writer is only the first reader," and I think so is an artist. I certainly don't know why he used lines and circles, probably to represent light and earth, and probably related to Buddhist philosophy – circles symbolize harmony and wholeness. In Christian theology, lines are associated with striving to climb upwards.
So, if you look at Gierowski's paintings in Beijing, you will get a different understanding than you see them in Warsaw, and if you look at them at the Mark · Rothko Museum in Latvia, it will have a different meaning. These circles and lines have universal geometric and metaphysical concepts. One of Gierowski's geniuses was that he tried to find a language in science that rivaled art. In his early works, that language was associated with religion.
Painting DCXCVI, 1996, 120 × 100.2 cm, oil on canvas
There's a passage in Gierowski's interview that if we assume that everything that has to do with color is the result of matter interacting with light, rather than some kind of refraction of light (i.e., a change in the path of light), then light and matter are inseparable, because matter needs to be manifested by light. It seems to me that his worldview is based on physicality and is particularly influenced by quantum physics. Did his later research on physics change his style of painting?
Gierowski has said that physics is so important to him that he considers Einstein to be a more important figure than the initiator of any 20th-century art movement, and that he has proposed more important hypotheses than any art movement. Gierowski's interest in physics was a very serious one. He read a lot of difficult physics books and did an in-depth analysis of string theory, but he didn't simply paint a picture of physics. He did something in the language of physics that physics could never do, talking about spirituality, solitude, passion, and transcendence. I think the great thing about him is that he did what science could never do in the language of science.
Untitled, 1991, 52.5 × 37.7 cm, watercolor on paper
Untitled, 2006, 75 × 52.5 cm, watercolor on paper
Gierowski's theme of light is what kind of light can bring out the light in his paintings?
Gierowski was given a very quiet space. The ceiling is low, with only one entrance, which is rectangular in shape. The effect of the light we wanted was to make the room disappear, and since we didn't want the showroom to be important, we didn't paint the walls differently, but left it white. Therefore, what really matters in the exhibition is the light of the paintings. When curating an exhibition, it's easy to paint the walls green or gray as a way to attract attention. But it's better to make the walls almost invisible, and the paintings shine through them like jewels.
As you mentioned earlier, the history of abstract art needs to be rewritten, and the network of relationships is far more diverse and rich than the existing story. How do you write about this part of Gierowski? Whether Kandinsky, Gierowski, or Rothko, the spiritual aspect of abstract art seems to have a connection to ancient Asian philosophies, and how can we revisit this connection?
The history of contemporary art is written from the perspective of Europe and North America, and Western critics and curators have little knowledge of art in Asia and even Eastern Europe. The Centre Pompidou in Paris has just acquired some of Gierowski's work, and I'm sure he'll have a major exhibition in United States soon. It is important to recognize that abstract art and art (especially contemporary art) is an art that contains a variety of stories, such as Chinese stories and Poland stories, and what is interesting about it is that most of these ideas are derived from ancient Asian philosophy. I hope that China will soon be able to hold some excellent exhibitions on the issues of Eastern philosophy and global artistic power. It should come from China, and it would be a great pity if museums in United States or Western Europe did such an exhibition. This is something that China should promote to the West.
采访、撰文 Leandra